Love and Loss
by NovaArbella
Summary: Neville Longbottom reflects on the Battle of Hogwarts. Written for the Diagon AlleyII forum Grand New Year Battle: A story made from prompts. Golden Trio Era one shot, round 4.


Diagon AlleyII forum Grand New Year Battle: The Death Eaters vs. The Order.

This was written for the Diagon AlleyII forum Grand New Year Battle between the Death Eaters and The Order. (Down with the Order!) The two teams are battling it out, so to speak, by writing stories based off of prompts. We have a great many number of prompts to choose from, each with their own point value and conditions. Below are my chosen prompts and their point tally. (this time I put them at the end so the beginning isn't all cluttered with them)

This story is for Round 2 of the Golden Trio Era, Round 4 in the overall contest. See my profile for my Rounds 1 and 2 submissions, both from the Marauder Era, Of Secrets and Hope and Snape's Story, The Evolution of a Death Eater, and my Round 3 submission from the Golden Trio Era, Harry Potter and the Uncertainty of Youth.

Rounds 1 and 2 saw victory for the DEs!

Love and Loss

Neville Longbottom grunted as he helped Argus Filch haul Voldemort's body out of the Great Hall and into a chamber off the Entrance Hall. He still couldn't believe that it was all over, that Harry had won and the world was safe again.

'For now,' he thought to himself as he and Filch picked their way through the rubble and unceremoniously dropped the body to the floor, where it landed with a dull thud. Neville idly noticed a broken crystal ball lying amongst the debris outside the room.

"'Ere ought to be fine," Filch grunted, giving the body a little kick. "Doesn't deserve to be in there with decent folk, he doesn't. This battle, all this death and destruction, is all because of him."

Neville nodded in agreement as he looked down into the waxy, pale face of the most dangerous wizard since Gellert Grindelwald. It was because of this man that he essentially had no parents. Of course it had been Bellatrix Lestrange that was directly responsible, but in Neville's mind it all came back to this sad and sorry piece of dead flesh at his feet.

He felt Filch clap him on the shoulder. "Alright there, lad?" he asked, and Neville nodded again. "You did good, you know. Your parents, I remember their days here at the school. They'd be proud of you killing this tosser's snake."

Neville stared at Filch, at a loss for words. He'd never heard the cranky old caretaker speak even one kind word to anyone, never mind offer up blunt praise. He already barely remembered killing Nagini with the Sword of Gryffindor. Too many other things were crowding his mind. He felt like he'd lived a hundred years since the beginning of this battle.

After Harry had appeared and told them all what he needed to do, Neville had helped any way he could. He'd organized the remains of the DA, encouraging them by reminding them all they'd learned from Harry while they'd all been opposing Umbridge in their fifth year and he'd even helped the professors and Order members to shore up the castle defenses. Along with all the other defensive wards and concealment spells, he and Hermione Granger had each even gone as far as to strengthen the Muggle Repelling Charm - Repello Muggletum. They wanted to be sure that no unsuspecting Muggles would wander into the fray.

The Order and the Death Eaters alike had suffered huge losses on both sides by the time Voldemort called for a pause in the fighting, demanding that Harry give himself up for the good of wizard kind. During that interlude Neville had helped to carry the dead into the Great Hall so that they could be laid near their family and friends. He'd been crushed as he'd helped Angelina and George carry Fred's body into the hall. George had been inconsolable although Angelina had done her best to try to calm him down.

"I'm going to see him every day in the mirror until I start to look older," George had sobbed into her shoulder after they had lain the body down.

Neville had slipped away as Angelina had hugged George close and stoked his hair, murmuring words of comfort that Neville couldn't make out. On his way, he'd passed the rest of the Weasleys as they all entered the Hall and had seen Fred with cries of rage and grief. He'd had to hurry away from all that anguish and had hastily gone off in search of something to keep himself occupied so that he wouldn't start to think about what lay ahead.

Later on, as he'd helped to carry in more bodies before the second part of the battle, he'd seen George and Angelina tucked away into a private corner. Angelina had been consoling George again when he'd suddenly leaned back and looked into her eyes for a moment before gently kissing her on the lips. Neville had discretely moved away, but not before he'd seen Angelina look startled, then return the kiss.

He hadn't understood at the time how they could be doing anything besides mourning their fallen comrades at a time like that, but soon it would hit him like the Hogwarts Express and he would understand perfectly.

His heart had broken a little when he'd come across the body of Colin Creevy and helped Oliver Wood to bring it into the castle. Neville remembered seeing Colin still alive and dueling not too long before the fighting ended. 'You almost made it, mate,' he'd thought sadly to himself, right as Harry had shown up out of, literally, nowhere.

He'd popped out from under his invisibility cloak, nearly giving Neville a heart attack, and had told him that it was important, no matter what, that the snake had to die. Neville had nodded as Harry pulled the cloak back over himself and went off on whatever his mission was. Neville envied the cloak. He'd known since first year that Harry had one. He'd seen it several times when Harry had left his trunk open. His uncle had one like it and Neville could remember him using it to cheat in hide and seek when he'd had been younger.

As he'd looked for more bodies to bring up to the castle, he'd dipped his hand into his pocket, closing it around the small vial of poison antidote that his Gram had insisted he carry when he'd gone off to school this year. She'd said that you could never be too careful and she'd be damned if she was going to lose a grandson to this war the way she'd lost a son to the last one. She'd also sent him off with a bottle of Dittany and some blood replenishing potions, which were in his other pockets.

Usually the little vials made him feel safer, but this time he'd known it wouldn't do him any good if he was bitten. He'd heard out of his Gram's own mouth that the potion wouldn't work on Nagini's venom. They'd all found that out when Aurthur Weasley had been bitten.

His Gran might have been too old to officially be part of the Order, but that hadn't stopped her from helping any way she could. She'd done everything from passing information, to housing fugitives, to letting Dumbledore use the family vault to keep things safe, like the opal necklace that had almost killed Katie Bell in their fifth year. No one would be able to get it while it was inside their vault. No one would be able to use it to hurt anyone.

Because of all these services his Gran had provided, she'd been privy to a lot of useful information, like the bits about Aurthur Weasley and Nagini's venom, or how the Philosopher's Stone had been destroyed after his first year at the school when Voldemort had failed to retrieve it. She'd even known that the school would host the Triwizard Tournament before many of the ministry officials involved. She hadn't done all those things for the gain of the knowledge though. She'd said that all those things had been the right things to do, so of course she'd done them.

That simple statement had really resonated with Neville as he'd stood there contemplating what the right thing was in that situation. The answer had been obvious. He would do the right thing if he got the chance.

A short while later Voldemort's magically magnified voice announced that he'd killed Harry and Neville heard someone yell in despair, "Harry Potter has fallen! The Dark Lord is unstoppable!"

He hadn't believed the horrible news - after all, he'd just seen Harry alive and well and he'd said that he wasn't going to face Voldemort alone - but he'd joined the crowd exiting the castle with dread growing in the pit of his stomach when he'd started to hear cries of despair. He hadn't wanted to believe his own eyes when he'd seen Hagrid carrying Harry's limp body up to the front steps with tears running down his face and into his big bushy beard.

He could remember thinking to himself, 'Harry's gone. How can Harry be gone?' as the Death Eaters had lined up, cackling and sneering at the gathering mass of witches and wizards who had come to see if it was true. Neville had seen Voldemort then, with Nagini around his neck and had known that this might be his only chance to do what he had to do, knowing that if they gave up now, it would be the end of it all.

He'd been shaking with nerves, and Merlin be damned if he could recall the exact details, but he'd managed to kill the snake. He could remember looking down the steps into the courtyard and thinking to himself, 'If I walk down these stairs, I may never come back up again,' and how scared he'd been when his feet carried him forward anyway, but most things after that were a blur.

He supposed that having the flaming Sorting Hat on his head at the time was a fairly good excuse for his spotty memory, but really, you would think he'd at least remember how the sword had gotten into his hands. After all, the flames hadn't burned. He'd stood there terrified and screaming, waiting for the pain to slam into him, but it never had. Later, when Harry revealed that none of Voldermorts spells were sticking because Harry had been willing to die for them all, Neville understood, but when the hat had been on his head, the instinct to scream and the inability to move had won out over any logic. The one thing he could recall clearly, though, was swinging with all his might.

All hell broke loose at that point as Nagini's head had flown through the air, and he'd suddenly realized what could have possessed George and Angelina to share a kiss in a war zone. Neville had started desperately chasing around, avoiding Death Eaters and searching for Luna, who he'd been secretly fancying this entire horrible year. They'd grown particularly close while hiding out in the Room of Requirement and he'd drawn a lot of comfort from her unconventional wisdom. She'd been invaluable at keeping people's spirits up during the last few months when things had sometimes seemed so hopeless and she'd seen things in him that he hadn't even known were there. He'd learned to treasure her alternate way of thinking and had been proud when she'd suggested to Harry a likely object to search for when he'd been at a loss as to what he might be looking for, hidden in the school.

It hit him as he'd been trapped inside the flaming hat, unable to pull it off, that he and Luna might not make it through this alive. Once that thought really truly hit home, he'd become determined to find her. He'd known as he'd run, dodging spells, curses, jinxes, and hexes, that his reaction probably wasn't the choice most people would have made, but he hadn't cared.

As he'd run through the hordes, firing spells at any Death Eater he'd come across, he'd frantically called for her, finally finding her fighting back to back with with Alicia Spinnet. He had jumped into the fray and helped them to defeat the half a dozen Death Eaters in the immediate area. Cries of Protego, Avada Kedavra, and Expelliarmus had filled the air as spells had flown around them.

After the dust settled, Alicia had run off and Luna had been about to follow, but Neville had grabbed her by the hand and spun her into his arms. He'd looked into her eyes before closing his own and crushing his lips down onto hers. They had tasted like pumpkin juice.

When he'd opened his eyes again, she'd been staring up at him with a misty smile. "I wondered when you were going to do that," she'd said dreamily.

He'd simply leaned down and kissed her again before rushing back toward the entrance hall to see if there was anything at all he could do to assure that Hogwarts didn't fall to Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Luna followed him into the Great Hall and had immediately joined Ginny and Hermione as they battled Bellatrix. Neville's hand had tightened on his wand as he'd also stepped toward the fight, determined to help bring down the witch who'd taken his parents away from him in a way worse than death.

Just as he'd raised his wand to strike, a masked Death Eater had run into his path and he'd had to cast a Shield Charm in front of himself or get hit by the Death Eater's Killing Curse. By the time he'd managed to fight him off, Molly Weasley had jumped in and killed Bellatrix in a spectacular display of wandsmanship.

Shortly after that, Harry had appeared from under his invisibility cloak, surprising everyone, igniting a spark of hope in Neville's heart. Harry had laid everything out on the table for Voldemort and the remaining witches and wizards in the hall and all the chaos and uncertainty that had surrounded this entire war suddenly seemed to start to make sense.

Neville still couldn't believe that Dumbledore had had the Elder Wand for all those years and that Harry had it now. The real, honest to goodness Elder Wand. He added that fact to the lengthy list of things he couldn't believe. Mainly that one single person could be responsible for so much misery, death, destruction, and anguish. They may have won this battle and ultimately ended this long long war, but the aftermath was far reaching and Neville wasn't sure things would ever be the same again.

* * *

****Dialogue Prompts: You may choose ********o********ne****

"If I walk down these stairs, I may never come back up again." 3

"Harry Potter has fallen! The Dark Lord is unstoppable!" 3 [Plus 1 point if you mention Harry's canonical death.]

****Character Prompts: You may choose ********four****

George Weasley 4 [Plus 2 points if you include Fred's canonical death.]

Neville Longbottom 7 [Plus 1 Spell Prompt of 1 point if you include Nagini's canonical death.]

Colin Creevey 4 [Mentioning his canonical death negates a condition on any one Prompt.]

Hermione Granger 5

****Pairing Prompts: You may choose ********one****

****[Please note that your pairing must come from your chosen character prompts. That is, if you choose Draco or Harry, you must choose a pairing with one or both of them in it.]****

Neville/Luna 5 [Plus 1 point if you mention them helping Harry find and destroy Horcruxes.]

George/Angelina 4 [Plus 2 Magical Objects Prompts if you include Angelina helping George cope with Fred's death.]

****Magical Objects: You may choose ********four at 1 point each****

Opal Necklace

The Elder Wand

Gryffindor's Sword

The Cloak of Invisibility

The Philosopher's Stone

Crystal Ball

****Potion Prompts: You may choose ********one. The potion must appear in some form and not as just a mention of its name.****

Poison Antidote 3 [Plus 1 Spell Prompt below 3 if you use this in conjunction with curing Nagini's bite.]

****Spell Prompts: You may choose ********two****

****[You can choose 2 only If you haven't chosen more than 2 Horcruxes and if you choose two, one must be a defensive spell and one must be an offensive spell. Also, you must use the incantation.]****

Shield Charm 2 [Defensive. Incantation: Protego/Protego Maxima] [You may choose 2 Dialogue Prompts.]

Muggle-Repelling Charm 1 [Defensive. Incantation: Repello Muggletum] [You may choose two Pairing Prompts.]

Killing Curse 4 [Offensive. Incantation: Avada Kedavra] [You may not use any light characters or pairings.]

Disarming Spell 1 [Defensive. Incantation: Expelliarmus] [Use this to negate the condition on the Killing Curse.]

****Theme Prompts:****

Death 10 [You may not use any Spell or Potion Prompts.]

Battle 10 [You may not use any Horcrux Prompts and must use at least 1 prompt that has the condition of death.]


End file.
